TY - GEN
T1 - Fabric soft poly-limbs for physical assistance of daily living tasks
AU - Nguyen, Pham H.
AU - Imran Mohd, I. B.
AU - Sparks, Curtis
AU - Arellano, Francisco L.
AU - Zhang, Wenlong
AU - Polygerinos, Panagiotis
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant CMMI-1800940.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - This paper presents the design and development of a highly articulated, continuum, wearable, fabric-based Soft Poly-Limb (fSPL). This fabric soft arm acts as an additional limb that provides the wearer with mobile manipulation assistance through the use of soft actuators made with high-strength inflatable fabrics. In this work, a set of systematic design rules is presented for the creation of highly compliant soft robotic limbs through an understanding of the fabric based components behavior as a function of input pressure. These design rules are generated by investigating a range of parameters through computational finite-element method (FEM) models focusing on the fSPL's articulation capabilities and payload capacity in 3D space. The theoretical motion and payload outputs of the fSPL and its components are experimentally validated as well as additional evaluations verify its capability to safely carry loads 10.1x its body weight, by wrapping around the object. Finally, we demonstrate how the fully collapsible fSPL can comfortably be stored in a soft-waist belt and interact with the wearer through spatial mobility and preliminary pick-and-place control experiments.
AB - This paper presents the design and development of a highly articulated, continuum, wearable, fabric-based Soft Poly-Limb (fSPL). This fabric soft arm acts as an additional limb that provides the wearer with mobile manipulation assistance through the use of soft actuators made with high-strength inflatable fabrics. In this work, a set of systematic design rules is presented for the creation of highly compliant soft robotic limbs through an understanding of the fabric based components behavior as a function of input pressure. These design rules are generated by investigating a range of parameters through computational finite-element method (FEM) models focusing on the fSPL's articulation capabilities and payload capacity in 3D space. The theoretical motion and payload outputs of the fSPL and its components are experimentally validated as well as additional evaluations verify its capability to safely carry loads 10.1x its body weight, by wrapping around the object. Finally, we demonstrate how the fully collapsible fSPL can comfortably be stored in a soft-waist belt and interact with the wearer through spatial mobility and preliminary pick-and-place control experiments.
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U2 - 10.1109/ICRA.2019.8794294
DO - 10.1109/ICRA.2019.8794294
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85067113677
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
SP - 8429
EP - 8435
BT - 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2019
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2019
Y2 - 20 May 2019 through 24 May 2019
ER -